Congress: The Dating Game
In a wide-open race, candidates sell charming personas to romance the electorate
Cover Story
Congress: The Dating Game!
Considering how unpopular the U.S. Congress is these days, it’s kind of surprising that anyone wants to join its ranks. Last month, Congress’ job-approval rating reached a historic low-water mark of just 10 percent, according to a Gallup survey. And yet here on the North Coast we find ourselves in the midst of the most…
Shooting Probe Could Be Swift
One Fortuna police officer involved in a deadly shooting is already back on the job after three days of paid leave, and a second officer could return to active duty within a week or so, Fortuna Police Chief Bill Dobberstein said today. “We’re hoping to have everything wrapped up by the end of this week,”…
Is This Stripped Bike a Crime or an Art Installation?
This year, it seems, the tableau outside the Humboldt County Courthouse has served as a Rorschach test for local residents. Some look at the huddled Occupy protesters and see a righteous social movement — stallwart defenders of justice. Others look at the same scene and see wastrels. Social rot. Some look at hand-drawn signs tied…
Don’t Bogart That Script
It’s been disturbingly like summer though it’s actually only March. Meanwhile Dell’Arte is starting to prepare this summer’s Mad River Festival show, which is going to be — last summer’s Mad River Festival show. Only different. And the difference may be — you. “Mary Jane: The Musical was the biggest grossing show in a single…
Upping Arcata’s Weird
Downtown Arcata is no stranger to strange. For better or worse, a trip to the Plaza is likely to include a cast of, uh, colorful figures. But even in A-town, we’re betting someone dubbed by TMZ as “The Freakiest Dude in America” will stand out. Sorry, Plazoids. You’re about to be out weirded. You’ve likely…
Free Speech? Tweet
Editor: If Marcy Burstiner’s daughter really has a message that she wants to disseminate to the masses (“Take the Money and Run With It,” March 1), there isn’t a damn thing a decision of the Supreme Court can do to stop her. All she needs is a Twitter account. Twitter rivals the printing press as…
Clarke’s Money Leak
Editor: Please let the article on Clarke Historical Museum (“Fight at the Museum,” March 8) be the first in a series. The problems at the Clarke are not with the staff, they are with the board of directors’ inadequate efforts in carrying out their responsibilities for everlasting protection of extraordinarily important collections. In 1998 there…
The Unbearable Lightness of The Parker Quartet
While the Eureka Chamber Music Series routinely brings in some truly fine touring string quartets, this Friday’s show is extra special. The Parker Quartet, founded a decade ago at the New England Conservatory of Music in conjunction with the conservatory’s professional string quartet training program, is arguably among the best in America. After garnering numerous…
Erin Go Bragh!
St. Patrick’s Day is upon us once again come Saturday, a day when everyone’s Irish, wearing green is considered mandatory, shamrocks are bandied about recklessly and the bartenders add green food coloring to beer. All this ostensibly to commemorate the death of a saint who was not Irish, because he supposedly drove some snakes out…
McKinleyville Art Night
A celebration of local art and artists with music, food and fun. McKinleyville Art Night is held on the third Friday of each month is open for all McKinleyville businesses to display the work of local artists. Contact Taffy Stockton at (707. 834-6460. More information at www.mckinleyvilleartsnight.com. 1. Eureka-Arcata Airport Special Event, View artwork by Humboldt…
Bouncing Sonar Off the Public
With the high seas awash in piracy, enemy submarines and unpredictably swirling geopolitical currents, the U.S. Navy wants its fleets ready to meet any potential threat. Readiness, it says, requires extensive training exercises on and under the ocean’s surface and in the air above it — with missiles, explosives and sonar. The Navy says caution,…
Kayaking
Kayaking is just as much about soundscape as it is about landscape. There is the rhythmic splashing of the paddle, of course, soothing and calming your mind. Then other sounds: waves, birds landing on the water or taking off en masse, fish jumping, boats passing by. The sounds travel and diffuse differently depending on…
Living Every Story
Renata’s Crêperia is not normally a music venue, but it becomes one Thursday when Myshkin’s Ruby Warblers drop by on a tour for Myshkin’s latest CD, Diamond Lust. “Don’t know if you saw her with Lila Nelson at HumBrews last time passing through,” says Renata (a big fan), “but I caught her in Berkeley some…
Kayaking Resources
Explore North Coast [http://explorenorthcoast.net/ ] is an association of paddlers that holds regular paddling events, detailed on its calendar, and promotes paddling safety and education. Humboats Kayak Adventures [ http://humboats.com/index.php ] offers kayak instruction, guided tours and kayak rentals from its waterfront location at Dock A, Woodley Island Marina, Eureka. Open daily 8 a.m. to…
Martian Kitsch
JOHN CARTER. With John Carter, writer-director Andrew Stanton (Wall E, Finding Nemo) hitches his wagon to Disney’s star, following Pixar counterpart Brad Bird into huge-budget live action. Bird stepped into the fourth installment of a well-established franchise, complete with mega-star (Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol). Stanton adapted an early 20th century sci-fi adventure by Edgar Rice…
Grasshopper Peak
I have a testable hypothesis (see Black Swans from last week) that any situation can be improved with a walk. Mental, physical, spiritual, relationship, professional, financial problems? Walking can only improve things, whether around town, through the Arcata Community Forest or — if you’re looking for more of a challenge — 3,379-foot up Grasshopper Peak,…
Sacramento ?s Eureka
Will discovers evidence that Eureka matters while visiting the Capitol building.
A truckload of wood stacked
such early blackness leaves me cold fighting the…
Public Comment
Public Comment
Behind the Redwood Door
Outside the bar, a woman screams. Inside, conversation stops, a bartender mutes the TV, and Guy Mallon exchanges glances with his wife before shouldering his way out into the mist. His friend sits propped against a dumpster, throat slashed. “His sequoia-green sweater was soaked with black blood.” In Mallon’s mythical Jefferson County the bar is…
Flash Us Your Fiction!
It’s time again for The Journal’s Flash Fiction Contest! We’re talking short-short-short, here — 99 words or fewer. Our all-star team of judges will read the stories blind and pick their favorites. The best of the best will be featured in an upcoming issue. There will be prizes of some sort. E-mail your entries to…
Default Lines
On the southeast corner of the Arcata Plaza, the doors of Plaza Design are locked now, and the windows are obscured by taped-up sheets of brown paper. The place has been shut down by the Arcata Economic Development Corp., whose executive director, Ross Welch, led the team that walked in earlier this month, ushered customers…
